This fall, fourth-graders throughout Virginia opened their history textbooks, Our Virginia: Past and Present, to the following passage on the Civil War:
Thousands of Southern blacks fought in the Confederate ranks, including two black battalions under the command of Stonewall Jackson.
No need to re-read the sentence, or search the bowels of your brain to remember if you, too, had learned this disconcerting notion in elementary school. It's false.
The textbook's author, Joy Masoff, included the passage based entirely on internet research?most of which came from the non-too-biased Sons of Confederate Veterans website.
More than a fluke story, the tale of Our Virginia highlights the inherent flaw of textbook adoption in general.
Currently, about twenty states mandate state-wide textbook adoption. Plainly, that means that boards of teachers (and, occasionally, some content experts) who are paid a paltry $200 and offered some free professional development hours, determine which textbooks are allowed to be used in classrooms across their respective states.* Needless to say, the vetting process is often not that rigorous.
There are myriad problems with this process (we're written on this topic before), and Joy Masoff's primo gaff highlights a few. Not only does textbook adoption distort the market by forcing teachers and districts into purchasing, as in this case, lower-quality books, it also infuses schools with mediocre instructional materials?and can lead to extremist views permeating the classroom.
A solution: Scrap the process of textbook adoption and allow districts, schools, or maybe even teachers, to choose their instructional material. Move to a ?tight-loose? approach. (We've written on this topic before as well.) Hold districts, schools and teachers accountable for student learning, but afford them the freedom to choose the books and resources that will best teach their students.
*Ironically, this practice started in Southern states after the Civil War. The states issued guidelines for school materials to reflect their version of the conflict.
?Daniela Fairchild
